Chapter Nineteen

To Roic's surprise, he was actually aided in his capture of the remaining NewEgypt security fellow by Dr. Leiber. Oki had grabbed the scientist when Roic had shouted, presumably to keep him from bolting, but then found him harder to get rid of; Leiber hung on to the thick left arm that was trying to shake him off, turning and twisting and evading what looked to be a heavy-duty shock stick, just long enough for Roic to close the distance and aim his stunner between Oki's eyes at point-blank range.

"Give it up, Oki," Roic advised genially. "It's been over ever since I sent your confessions off in a bottle. I'd have thought you people would have realized that."

Caught and nailed by Roic's steady and implacable gaze as much as by the weapon aimed at his head, Oki reluctantly held his right arm wide and released his shock stick, which fell with a clatter. As he slumped, Leiber stood away from him, wheezing but with his spine actually straight for a change. Unasked, Oki folded his hands atop his head and stood looking downright miserable.

Madame Sato, distraught, slid to the floor to gather up her son's limp body. The unconscious boy was pale, but Roic saw with satisfaction that the cut on his neck was a mere shallow scratch, barely bleeding.

"I'm sorry Jin was caught in my stunner nimbus, ma'am," Roic said to her. "But I've found it's usually better to resolve these hostage situations as directly as I can. Bad to let them spin out."

"This is a nightmare," she groaned.

Roic granted this with a nod, but said, "Cut short now, ma'am. Raven will get Jin some synergine right away"-Roic rolled his eye compellingly at Raven-"and he won't even wake up with a headache."

Raven took the hint and scurried back to the recovery room for suitable supplies.

M'lord strolled up, possessed himself of the shock stick, and regarded their captive with a curious and thoughtful air, like a biologist planning out the dissection of a promising new specimen.

Oki regarded him back, bewildered. "Who the hell are you people, anyway?"

"From your point of view," said m'lord, "I suppose we're your karma delivery service. Why the devil didn't you and your buddy Hans run and keep on running when you had the chance, earlier today? Yesterday, by now, I guess. Why ever did you go back to your bosses?"

"We got families, you know."

M'lord's brows rose. Had this not occurred to him before now, Roic wondered? "If you didn't want to be a disgrace to them, you're about eighteen months too late, I think."

Oki rocked a bit. "That, and the money."

M'lord brows went up a bit further. Oki said defensively, "For the first time in my life, the money was good. We bought a house."

Oki's was not exactly a world of riotous living, Roic suspected. If NewEgypt's plant security hiring practices were any good, he'd probably been an honest man, before he'd been sucked down into this bog by his bosses. Roic glanced at m'lord, prepared to give a hint and a nudge, but m'lord was on it already.

"It's not too late even now to limit your damages. What's the local equivalent of turning Emperor's Witness around here, does anyone know? They must have one."

"Prefecture's Evidence, I believe, m'lord," said Roic.

"I happen to have a good lawyer on retainer who can advise you, if you cooperate with me in a timely fashion," m'lord told their captive. "That means, instantly."

Roic took the cue and a tighter grip on his stunner, staring along its length into Oki's eyes, for emphasis.

"Where were you taking Leiber and Sato just now?" asked m'lord. "Not for a walk, presumably."

"Akabane's waiting for us out front in the street with the van," mumbled Oki.

"The NewEgypt finance chief? Alone?"

Oki wet his lips. "It was just supposed to be Leiber, see."

M'lord's eyes lit. "That one we want, Roic-in flagrante delicto and arrested on the premises, if possible. An enemy's mistake is a tactical gift that must never be wasted."

Oki added, unasked, "It was going to be wall-to-wall lawyers for them-President Kim, and Choi who runs Operations, and Napak, that research head. Akabane caught us after the big meeting-said it was plain that him and us were going to be the goats, that the other three would hand us over without a blink in the morning if nothing was done. But he knew from the last time that my brother-in-law was with the Legacy Liberators, and…"

"Division and panic, ah," said m'lord, sounding quite satisfied. "That explains much. Hurry, Roic. Akabane's bound to bolt as soon as the police show up in force."

Raven was returning with a medkit. Roic passed his stunner briefly to m'lord, circled Oki and fastened his wrists behind his back with his own tanglecuffs, was blandly handed back his weapon, grabbed Leiber's arm, and jogged for the end stairs.

"What do you want me for?" asked Leiber, sounding a touch alarmed, as they scuffed rapidly down the steps.

"You can ID Akabane for me. I wouldn't want to stun the wrong fellow, after all."

"You're pretty free with that thing."

"It's all right. I have a license to stun."

"I thought that was supposed to be a license to kill."

Roic grimaced. "That, too. But you would not believe all the forms that have to be filled out, afterward."

Leiber looked as if he weren't sure if that was a joke or not, which was all right, since Roic wasn't sure either. The procedures hadn't been all that amusing at the time. Or in retrospect.

They pushed through the heavy metal doors at the intake building's far end, turned left, and rounded the corner onto its long front side. A short, U-shaped driveway in the center led to a covered entry space, where patients and visitors had once been dropped off, no doubt. The drive embraced what had likely been a sweep of tidy lawn and landscaping, but now was a sad stretch of weeds. There was no security lighting, but a lot of flickering hand lights revealed a herd of elderly people in all sorts of dress and undress, milling about on the drive and the ex-lawn. To Roic's relief, no orange fire-glow reflected in the night mist from the other side of the complex, but various colors of flashing emergency lights did, which helped illuminate the scene in a dance-party sort of fashion.

A double row of parking spaces ran the length of the facility's front-Roic could see the end of the administration building, beyond the intake building, and mentally located Madame Suze's corner office on its top floor. Beyond the parking row, the facility was bounded by the dilapidated chain link fence.

In the street beyond, only one or two dark and distant vehicles were parked, but just past the gate with its tumbled-down old security kiosk, a familiar van lurked in the shadows. The gate, interestingly, had been forced open and left standing wide.

"All right," said Roic. "Wait'll I take cover behind that gate kiosk, then go out to the end of the lawn and mill around like the others. Make sure you can be seen from the street, but don't get within arm's length of the drive."

"Wait, what, you want to use me as bait?" said Lieber, indignant. "I thought you wanted me to identify Akabane!"

"This'll do that," said Roic reasonably. "Nobody else here is going to go grabbing for you. Plus it will lure him out of his vehicle and onto the grounds." I hope.

"Why bother?"

"First, I can't stun him through the side of the van, and second, if nothing else, Lord Mark can charge him with trespassing. Which will hold him for the night, and by morning it'll be too late."

"I thought that fellow Fuwa owned the place."

"If Lord Mark doesn't own it by now, I don't know him." Not that anyone did really know him, not even m'lord. Well, maybe Miss Kareen. "Go on." Roic gave Lieber a little encouraging shove, then drifted away unobtrusively through the intermittent shadows to take cover on the facility side of the gate kiosk, out of sight of the street.